Dragon fruit is of cactus facmily, with high economic value. It can be taken as fruit, flower, vegetable, health product and medicine as well, called "priceless treasure"also Rich in fibre, vitamin C and minerals the dragon fruits is also low in calories ... so an all round good fruit to eat! This fruit is also rich in phytoalbumins which have antioxidant properties.
Growing Dragon fruit
Growing Dragon fruit
The cactus which dragon fruit comes from can grow anywhere between a few inches up to 20’ long (that’s for the more mature plants ...). Growing best in tropical, sub tropical or dry climates where there’s about 20-25” rain per year theses plants can cope with extremes of temperatures – from temperatures as high as 104ºF to short periods of frost. Although they don’t like being too wet (this will affect cropping) or long periods of cold weather (which can kill the plants). These plants survive by growing on trees – they grow out of the soil and over it until they find a tree they can grow on using their aerial roots. They’re not particularly fussy about the type of soil they grow in although grow best when the soil is kept high in nutrients by adding in organic matter. What’s quite unusual is that the ornate flowers that the plants produce only appear during the night and last only one night ... so pollination has to take place at that point to get a crop of dragon fruit. However, to counter these plants can product 4-6 crops of dragon fruit each year.
Propagate Your Own Cactus ... And Maybe A Dragon
Ok ... so I’ve been less distressed over the cost of the dragon fruit since I read how easy it is to grow your own cactus from the seeds found within the fruit. By simply scooping out some of the flesh and separating out the seeds you’re ready to start planting.Simply sow in pots containing gritty potting compost, water and then enclose the whole within a polythene bag. It’s as easy as that!You’ve then just got to be patient for about two weeks before you’ll see the seedlings starting to appear. As I’ve never grown cactus, I don’t know if this is common or not, but the seedlings have two leaves on them ... in fact these are the only leaves this plants will every produce. From this point onwards a spiny stem will begin to grow between the centres of these leaves ... with the leaves being discarded after a few months. In theory, you should then be able to grow your own dragon fruit although let’s hope that they don’t grow to 20’ high!!
The health benefits of dragon
The health benefits of dragon fruit nutrition factors range from the very simple and well understood health benefits of dragon fruit fiber in your diet and the amount of vitamin C in dragon fruit to the less well understood but highly important diabetes dragon fruit nutrition benefit to diabetics which causes the lowering of blood glucose levels when dragon fruit is part of a meal like the diabetes dragon fruit salad meal. Dragon fruit nutritional benefits are almost as varied as the ways people vary in their preferences for how to eat dragon fruit!
